Is Gold Flipping a Thing? How to Sell Gold Jewelry for a Profit

Once you drain your attic of its old gold and empty all of your old jewelry boxes, there are still ways to find more gold to sell in Boca Raton. If you are the kind of person who likes long walks on the beach, grab a metal detector and start scouring beaches, parks, and other common areas. However, if you would rather spend your days shopping inside, head to the thrift store–these places can be fabulous for finding gold.

Finding Gold to Sell at Thrift Stores

Thrift stores can be a veritable goldmine of underpriced gold and jewelry, but you have to be willing to invest time searching. Unfortunately, the gold is not just going to jump out at you. You will likely have to spend hours upon hours digging through donated jewelry before you find something valuable.

If you want to sell gold for a profit in Boca Raton, you need to set aside hours for the search. Thrift stores, like all other stores, are busiest on the evenings and weekends when people are not working. If possible, try to hit these places during the week when they are empty. That way you won’t have to fight with other bargain hunters, and you will have breathing space during your search. Keep in mind that people donate to thrift stores every single day, meaning that you can easily visit the same store once a week or even several times per week and see different inventory.

Typically, the inventory at a thrift store represents the surrounding community. Thus, a thrift store near a college campus may have lots of small and fashionable clothes but not a lot of valuable jewelry or gold. Thrift stores in affluent areas, in contrast, are more likely to receive donated boxes that have bits of valuable jewelry floating at the bottom of them. After a couple of trips to any thrift store, you should get a sense of what type of inventory that store tends to have. However, don’t get discouraged–potentially, you can find valuable gold to sell at any thrift store. You just need a big dose of patience and a bit of luck on your side.

Finding Gold at Rummage Sales and Estate Sales

Thrift stores aren’t your only option when you are trying to find underpriced gold to sell in Boca Raton. When deciding where to shop, pick stores where the merchandise probably has not been gone over by an expert. Consignment shops and pawn shops are not the best place to start, as both of these locations have all of their inventory examined by someone before it hits the shelves. Thus, it is unlikely that you will find too much underpriced loot in either of these types of shops. In fact, some people go to consignment shops or pawn stores just so that they can sell their gold in Boca Raton.

In addition to thrift stores, charity shops, rummage sales, and estate sales are all great places to look for gold. At charity shops and rummage sales, you might find underpriced gold that you can turn around and sell to a gold dealer in Boca Raton for a profit. These venues work, because the person putting the price on the jewelry might just see an ugly old piece of jewelry, and they may overlook the pneumatic value of the item.

Estate sales are often a great place to search as well. Most people who organize estate sales know how to spot and price jewelry. However, estate sales by their very nature must be quick. The required expediency often means that goods are priced at much less than their actual worth. Thus, these sales can be useful for you to attend if you want to buy and sell gold in Boca Raton. Don’t expect to see prices as low as you might if you luck out at a thrift store, but expect to find good values.

The Right Tools and Hallmarks

To discover hidden gems, you need more than the patience to sift through box after box of worthless jewelry. You need a few tools as well. Most gold, silver, and other precious metal is marked, and you will be able to see these hallmarks more easily if you have a magnifying eyeglass. You can buy a simply magnifying glass, or you can buy one that has been made specially for looking at jewelry.

Gold is typically marked based on how many carats it has. If you see small markings like 24k, 14k, or 10k, grab that gold. You will love how easy it is to resell that gold. However, these items may be scarce as many people are trained to recognize these types of markings.

Keep your eye open for purity markings. These markings are less common than the 24k, 14k, and 10k markings, and thus, they are more likely to be overlooked. Purity markings indicate how pure the gold is. A piece of 14k gold, for example, will have a 585 on it, indicating that is is 58.5 percent pure. A 24k gold piece of jewelry will have a 999 on it, indicating 99.9 percent purity.

Don’t just limit your search to gold. Make sure that you are scouring these places for silver as well. Silver is also marked, and some of the hallmarks that you will see are .999 for pure silver or .925 for sterling silver. You will also find low numbers like .900, .800, etc.. Many gold dealers in Boca Raton will also buy silver in addition to buying gold.

However, you should avoid items that are just silver plated. These items are not worth buying (unless you just want to own them for fun). Some silverplated items actually say silverplated on them, but other ones are marked with some variation of the letters EP. EP stands for electroplated, and these letters can be part of longer phrases like EPNS which stands for electroplated nickel silver.

Having Fun

The best part of looking for gold in thrift stores is that it is fun. The search and the hunt are incredibly satisfying, and once you find your first piece of real gold or valuable jewelry, you will be hooked. There’s no reason to just wander around a thrift shop for fun. Now, you can turn those shopping hours into a profitable side business. All you need is a bit of patience, a lot of luck, and a reputable gold buyer in Boca Raton. Together, those elements could line your pockets with extra cash.